The Star-Ledger Editorial Board (free version here) just weighed in on the habit of Newark Public Schools officials taking lavish excursions at taxpayer expense. For instance, this month 18 school board members and district staffers “are headed to sunny Dallas, 14 are going to Atlantic City, and 10 will be traveling to a conference at the Bellagio in Vegas, including the superintendent.” How much will this little shindig cost you? About $70,000. 

Now, I understand that it is standard practice for staff and board members to attend conferences in order to learn about improving instruction and management. But state regulations require travel to conferences be limited “to the fewest number” of board members and staff members because whatever they learn can be “turn-keyed”: taught to non-traveling personnel by the participant. When the Star-Ledger asked  Essex County executive superintendent Joseph Zarra why he approved these exorbitant trips, he declined to respond.

Here is the real problem with NPS’s use of revenue, which comes to $1.5 billion a year: While Superintendent Roger Leon and his pals are basking in the sun at “a luxury waterfront hotel in San Diego with a poolside bar that served $20 cocktails, tuna niçoise and Wagyu beef,” our kids are can’t read. Across the district only one out of three students is proficient at reading and only one at six is proficient in math.

So, with all the travel-related spending, when will that investment trickle down to our children? So far it’s not. In comparison, when you visit private schools you immediately see how the money goes right into classrooms through lower student teacher ratios, STEM courses, wood-working classes, and more. Here, our children’s needs are gobbled up by Newark’s industrial-complex education system.

We need innovative thinkers— especially since AI will take over, some say, up to 40% of jobs— and an innovative school system. Instead, NPS is using taxpayer money for Leon and his besties to feast at first-class hotels. That’s wrong.  Our resources should go directly to helping our children recover the learning they’ve lost — or never had in the first place—so they actually have a chance to thrive. 

There is nothing wrong with a board member and a staff member going to a professional development conference focused on boosting learning. But “$20 cocktails, tuna niçoise, and Wagyu beef” won’t help our children make it in the real world. Can we get our priorities straight?